Aberdeen Kirkhill T&RSD

[shortliner]

Not sure how much work you'll get done if you've got the strippers and I suspect the fiddle yard may be a euphemism - but it might be fun!

[GWRPhil]

I've been spending my time painting all the fiddle yard boards and today I've just bought the wire and strippers to start laying the fiddle yard.

 

Glenn texted yesterday to say that he had relaid the wash road, extended the old loco storage siding, shortened the old shed siding (which now is the sleeper discharge siding) and was just finishing laying the main line.

 

We will be at Warley (as visiters) next weekend but the first weekend in December I have a weeks holiday so I'm hoping to get quite a bit done. As we can't set up the layout in full at either of our houses we are looking to book a scout hut/community hall and have a running session around Jan/Feb to try to iron out any problems.

 

I'll text Glenn and see if he has any more photos of his progress so far.

Sounds like things are going well with the layout it's always good to hear and see the progress on the layout.

 

Will be good to see any pics Glenn may have

 

I'll be at Warley was well, as a member of the club helping operate the Warley club layout dalby wood. Hope you have a great weekend at the NEC.

[Flood]

It's not every day I manage to post a picture of a pair of strippers on RMweb...

 

 

I've always said "why pay if you can't handle the goods". I'm sure these are definitely worth the £8.99 I paid.

[87023Velocity]

Got a pair of those from Maplins and they work a treat for how much they cost.

 

Cheers

 

Simon

[Dunedin]

OK, so as Graham said, I've been laying more track - exciting eh?

 

Well actually, there's been quite a bit of progress:

 

What is now the wash road, was our fuelling road originally, so I've had to take out the original plastikard bases that were the fuel aprons and also the track had to be re-laid. In order to fit the original Knightwing aprons, I had to cut the ends of the sleepers off, so without the aprons there, it would have looked odd. Hence new track and also a new uncoupler beneath the board. This doesn't really show the new track that well (it's too far away), but it gives a good general impression:

 

 

I've also extended what was our loco holding siding as Graham said, so it can now hold a 5-car rake:

 

 

What was our shed road, will now become the sleeper effluent discharge road with concrete aprons and walkways each side. You can see the wood which will form the walkways to the side of the sleepers:

 

 

 

I've also progressed the mainline, but now I'm at the point where it leaves the viewing area of the layout and curves away off, on to the bridging board which will link it to the fiddle yard that Graham is working on. I have a bridge board from a previous layout (good bit of up-cycling), so now it has cork tiles on it and is ready for painting and track-laying. I've also added dowels to it and coach-bolted it to Board 1 of the layout. That way, when it's painted, I will be able to get the curves passing from Board 1 to the bridge board to pass smoothly over the join. This photo shows the curves, although incomplete at this stage and you can see the gap cut in the back-scene, so the trains can get through! I actually need to enlarge it slightly. The mainline will run through a cutting and under a road over-bridge as it goes off-scene. Between the sleeper road and the mainline will be a hill, with a retaining wall next to the walkway. This will form the support for the ends of the lighting gantries, which will be extended, with additional floodlights.

 

 

I've no idea whether any of the above makes sense to those of you reading this, but trust me; I know what I'm doing (I think!).

Edited December 27, 2022 by Dunedin
Re-inserted missing images.

[GWRPhil]

Some good progress and it makes sense to me. Will be good to see progress on the mainline going of seen when it's done.

[Dunedin]

Tonight I've reached a significant milestone: track-laying on the main boards of Kirkhill is now complete! 

 

The up and down mainlines now make the transition on to the bridge board which will connect to the fiddle yard:

 

 

The connection to the fiddle yard will be single track to make it easier for accessing all roads from either up or down main, so this will be via a curved point on the bridge board.

 

 

The mainlines cross from Board 1 to the bridge board at quite a shallow angle, which made getting the alignment more difficult than on any of the other board joints we have. All our others are straight, so two sleepers either side of a joint are secured with three track pins each and this seems to have worked well for the last six or so years. It doesn't work at a shallow angle, particularly with concrete sleepered Peco Code 100 track, so I've gone for the copper-clad paxolin method:

 

 

It certainly doesn't look as neat, but nothing derails over the transition, which was the problem I had originally and because this is the scenic break, it will be hidden in a cutting, under a bridge, so it won't matter.

 

 

That just leaves completing the wiring and the scenery.....oh and building the other bridge board.....adding more uncouplers where they're needed and then matching it all up with the fiddle yard when Graham's finished it.

 

Tomorrow, it's off to the NEC and the Warley Exhibition with a reasonable shopping list of things to complete the scenic parts.

 

Edited December 27, 2022 by Dunedin
Re-inserted missing images.

[Dunedin]

Things have been a little quiet on the forum recently, but that doesn't mean things haven't been progressing on Kirkhill. Here are a couple of photos taken this evening of developments on Boards 1 & 2:

 

Looking north, sleeper discharge road on the left (this is where the shed used to be) and main line to far left, disappearing off-scene in the cutting:

 

 

Same two boards, looking south:

 

 

There will be an occupation bridge over the tracks to partially hide where the mainlines go off-scene. More of this to follow.

 

Thank you for following us on RMWeb over the last year. All the comments and likes etc. have been a great source of encouragement and we look forward to bringing you more news of developments in the New Year and meeting some of you at exhibitions in 2017. So far, we are confirmed for the Mickleover Model Railway Group's Derby Exhibition at the Roundhouse in May 2017 and have just been invited to the Alsager Railway Association's exhibition on 4th - 5th November 2017 in Crewe at Bentley Motors.

 

Wishing you all a great Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year!

[Dunedin]

Happy New Year to all our followers!

 

More progress over the last few weeks.

 

Over Christmas, I made a bridge for the south end of the layout to help disguise the scenic break. This is a plywood shell, covered in DAS and then scored to represent the stonework then painted and weathered:

 

Before painting:

 

 

After painting, in situ for trial-fit:

 

 

After a few false-starts, I'm now reasonably happy with the sleeper discharge road. It needs the CET equipment adding and then weathering, but the effect is getting there, with the concrete apron and walkways evident. Also the retaining wall is now in place:

 

 

This week, Alex and I have started to experiment with some scenic additions. There's still a lot more to do, but I'll keep adding updates over the next few weeks as progress continues:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 28, 2022 by Dunedin
Missing images re-inserted.

[Flood]

Whilst I can't match Glenn's ability for scenery I can show all of you the progress I have been making over the last 6 weeks with the fiddle yard.

 

Board 1 (to the right) and board 2. Board 1 will have a 3 ft radius curve from the bottom rh corner to the top lh corner installed later to meet up with a transition board.

 

 

Board 3

 

 

The underneath of board 4 which tonight Glenn has started to add the busbar and connected the droppers. This board is 11 sidings of plain line with one crossover on the two tracks nearest the operators.

 

 

Boards 5 (furthest) and 6 which have had all the points wired up tonight along with all the holes drilled for the droppers and holes for the point switch rods. I am hoping to have most of the plain line completed on these two boards by the end of the weekend.

 

 

Board 7 will be a (near enough) mirror image of board 1.

 

So whilst these are not as pretty as Glenn's photos the fiddle yard is just a little bit necessary and has to be ready for a test run of the complete layout some time in the next month or so. To quote Glenn, "What could possibly go wrong?"

Edited April 4, 2022 by Flood

[GWRPhil]

Was wondering if you had any updates recently?

[Dunedin]

Just a few things have been going on over the last couple of weeks:

 

Graham has finished laying the track on the fiddle yard, so I've started wiring it:

 

 

The lighting gantries in the yard have been extended to take in the additional road, which is now where the maintenance shed used to be. This is the first gantry on test:

 

 

In addition to adding an extra three lights along the gantries where they have been extended, I've also added them facing in both directions, which is more prototypical. We've installed the third gantry this afternoon. The glue is still drying and the right hand support is still to be added (although that end of the gantry can't be seen in this view):

 

 

On the approach to the sleeper discharge road, we now have a crossing, to allow access from the maintenance end of the depot to the cleaning end. This view also shows part of the mainline, looking south. Signalling cable troughs are in the process of being installed.

 

 

The bridge over the mainline at the south end of the layout still isn't fixed in, but it has been surfaced now. This is an occupation bridge, so it isn't a metalled road; it's dirt and weeds:

 

 

Looking north from the southern end of the layout: cleaning and stabling roads on the right, farm track ahead, leading to the bridge and the mainline stretching off to the north and Aberdeen station and the city centre:

 

Edited December 29, 2022 by Dunedin
Re-inserted missing images.

[GWRPhil]

That's some really good progress. The mainline is looking particularly good now that the scenery is building up around it. Plus I like the yard lights they're looking very effective. It's going to really be a brilliant layout once it's finished. Can't wait to see it out on the exhibition circuit again

[Flood]

Over another month gone since the last update and still there seems so much to do.

 

I've had the last week and this week on holiday so quite a bit has been done. Today I went to Glenn's and we converted the old points panel to now operate the revised front of the layout. Out of the twenty three points in total seventeen of them now have their push buttons with more buttons on order to finish this panel and for those needed for the fiddle yard panel.

 

Glenn has spent the last month on scenery on the front of the layout with Alex Carpenter also giving us considerable help with the scenery as well. Scenic boards 1 and 2 are now complete with Glenn moving on to scenic board 7 and Alex adding cable trunking, signals and static grass to boards 3 and 4.

 

Please excuse some of the following photos. As they are mainly just Whats-App photos as quick progress reports to each other some are either slightly out of focus or not straight. We haven't the time at the moment to get a tripod out and take better photos.

 

Board 3 showing the main lines, signal and cable trunking

 

Boards 1 and 2 with the revised lighting

 

Board 7 with the new Wellington Road bridge in the background, Girdleness Road to the right hand side and the tanker off load area.

 

Over the last month I have started to get together the 30 freight vehicles needed for the new sequence. These will comprise:

 

8 Bachmann HEA domestic coal hoppers

2 Bachmann TTA diesel tanks

2 Bachmann VAA/VBA vans

2 Bachmann VDA  vans

1 Heljan Cargowaggon

5 Cambrian OTA timber wagons

6 PSA Lime Opens

2 TTA propane tanks

1 TTA Molasses tank

1 VTG slurry tank

 

The 8 HEA wagons, 2 VDA vans and Cargowaggon are near enough straight out of the box. The TTA diesel tanks are BP repaints that were on the original layout.

 

The 2 Bachmann VAA wagons have had their end vents removed as the majority were of this configuration

 

The OTA wagons are Cambrian kits of which there will be 1 original low end version, 1 Thames Board version and 3 of the high end version. The first two are now complete as seen below.

 

Low end OTA

 

Thames Board OTA

 

The real  PSA open wagons were converted in 1981 from TTA wagons built in 1975. For these I have used Bachmann TTAs and made new bodies from plastikard and Evergreen strip. Now given the correct 2ft long buffers (thank you Lanarkshire Models, the order arrived at my door 23 hours after being placed) they are currently being painted

 

Original Bachmann TTA

 

PSA open wagon (very poor photo)

 

Four of the six PSA wagons

 

 

The Propane tanks are slight conversions from a Bachmann TTA but the molasses tank is a major operation with a new 28mm diameter barrel and new scratch built heavy duty 12 leaf springs. Photos of these will appear when more work has been done.

 

Finally the VTG Slurry tank. Converted from a Dapol Silver Bullet, the build for this was finished last weekend with the bogies being soldered together on Sunday afternoon. Dropping the model at about 14.00 on Saturday afternoon didn't help matters but luckily it was only joins between parts that broke so was easy enough to stick back together. When I got home tonight it received a coat of grey primer (they were black all over when first built but then heavily weathered) the photos below show the basic parts unpainted to assist in showing the work involved. The Silver Bullet wagon is there for comparison. It is owned by Alex and I am not looking at converting another one!

 

One side of both wagons

 

 

The same side of the VTG tank

 

Other side of both wagons

 

The other side of the VTG tank

 

Underframe views from both sides

 

 

The end platform detail with brake handle

 

 

Well that's it for now. The wagons will be worked on when time allows but I have a maintenance shed and backscene buildings to concentrate on. Thank you all for following our progress and please feel free to post any comments.

 

Edited December 31, 2022 by Flood

[Dunedin]

With just a month to go until the Derby exhibition, it's been a busy few weeks, so I'm taking a weekend off. I think I deserve it and my wife certainly does with me having been out in the garage each evening and weekend recently.

 

As always, most of the work won't be directly visible to those watching the layout, but the results should be. There have been many more wiring alterations to take account of the changes to the track work, which also nessitated a change to the points control panel. These are just about complete and ready for testing. There is also a new panel for the additional Kadee electromagnetic uncouplers.

 

The more visible changes have been to Board 7. This was the new board which was added in order to accommodate the relocation of the fuel point to where our fiddle yard used to be and the transition off-scene to the new rear fiddle yard. Graham's last post showed a photo of it as it was a few weeks ago, but I've shown it again here so you can see the contrast:

 

 

Over the last few weeks, the new Wellington Road Bridge has taken shape and more scenery has been added to it:

 

 

This week, I've added more grass and weeds and the security fence down Girdleness Road from the bridge to the depot entrance:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Graham has also modified a section of the maintenance shed that had to be removed so it would fit its new location, into a depot stores and it looks really good:

 

 

We have a shakedown session booked at Mickleover Community Centre in two weeks time to identify as many bugs as possible, so we can (hopefully) fix them before the show. The layout is now too large to set up at my house, so this is our best option. We'll give you an update as things progress.

Edited December 29, 2022 by Dunedin
Re-inserted missing images.

[GWRPhil]

Really good to see the excellent progress on the layout.

 

Good luck getting everything sorted for the derby show.

 

Hope you have a good weekend off. Sounds like you deserve it.

 

Phil

[Enterprisingwestern]

Very nice, but, aren't the posts on that chain link fencing the wrong way round, or are you stopping the staff escaping!

 

Mike.

[Scott B]

Very nice, but, aren't the posts on that chain link fencing the wrong way round, or are you stopping the staff escaping!

 

Mike.

 

I would say they are most definitely the right way round.

 

Great job on the extension, look forward to seeing the layout in its new formation.

 

Scott

[Enterprisingwestern]

I would say they are most definitely the right way round.

 

Great job on the extension, look forward to seeing the layout in its new formation.

 

Scott

 

So, to get into the depot, all you have to do is climb up the chain link fence, lay your coat over the angled barbed wire and drop painlessly inside?

Or do you mean they are to stop staff escaping?!

 

Mike.

[Dunedin]

So, to get into the depot, all you have to do is climb up the chain link fence, lay your coat over the angled barbed wire and drop painlessly inside?

Or do you mean they are to stop staff escaping?!

 

Mike.

Or you just walk in through the gate, which would be open most of the time anyway. I haven't added those yet by the way.

 

I wondered the same thing - i.e. Which way round the posts should face and I can see your logic Mike, so I did some research. On the packaging from Ten Commandments, it shows them facing the way round I've put them, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's right, I looked at some real fences that I pass on my way to work in Derby. The tops of the posts on those also face inwards, so I at least have a prototypical precedent.

 

I suspect it may depend on ownership of the adjacent land and the space available at the boundary. If the posts face outwards, then they overhang somebody else's land and encroach into their space. I suspect both ways round are therefore accurate.

[Scott B]

So, to get into the depot, all you have to do is climb up the chain link fence, lay your coat over the angled barbed wire and drop painlessly inside?

Or do you mean they are to stop staff escaping?!

 

Mike.

 

If that is what you want to do yes, but it is the right way round in I would have thought 99% of the cases it is used at.

 

I would be interested to see any angled barbed wire overhanging the pavement.

 

MOD locations use double angled, one in each direction.

 

Scott

[Flood]

Way back in the mists of time Bob posted this photo:

 

Perhaps we should have cut the angles off the top to remove the issue completely.

Edited December 31, 2022 by Flood

[rob D2]

I'm sure I read somewhere on here, that the posts are normally like these, other than the MOD who had them angled out.

[Dunedin]

Anyway, we actually might want to prevent the staff from escaping...

 

I had a colleague, when I worked at Craigentinny in the '80s, who had been a supervisor at Duddeston in Birmingham. The Manchester - Birmingham Mark 1 sets in those days were vacuum braked and didn't have automatic slack adjusters on the brake gear. Every few days they needed adjusting - known as pin-shifting - and none of the staff liked this job. One night during a pin shift, my colleague who was also on-call, got called away to an incident. When he returned, all the staff had gone. They'd just done a runner and left Andy to finish off the pin-shift on his own!

[Dunedin]

Less than two weeks to go now before the show at The Roundhouse in Derby!

 

This last weekend, we had a testing and shakedown session at Mickleover Community Centre with the intention of getting everything fully tested before we need to run the layout for real at the exhibition.

 

This was the first time we had been able to set up all the scenic boards together since my mega-wiring changes and our scenic additions and it was also the first time we have attached the scenic boards to the fiddle yard. I think it's fair to say that it's big; very big!

 

We had our fair share of challenges and we finished very late on Saturday night/early Sunday morning. We only had until midday on Sunday, but I can say that for one, I really enjoyed running it and we do now have an operational layout. The weekend at Mickleover was invaluable and we are now much better prepared for The Roundhouse and hopefully, things will go ok there too.

 

There is still some scenic work to do, which will be completed between now and the show, but the following YouTube clips give a brief idea of the set-up:

 

 

 

I haven't made these public yet (I'm still a novice with YouTube!), but I'm hoping that sharing these links will work.